


Infinite Mutability

by charcoane



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 19:13:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23935021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charcoane/pseuds/charcoane
Summary: If Tony could've scheduled a heart attack, he would have penciled it in at the exact time it happened: two days after the fight in Siberia, four miles north of the New York-Presbyterian in Lower Manhattan.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 5
Kudos: 88





	1. Boy Loses Girl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured it was high time I cleaned out my files, so here: have an unedited, unfinished, weirdly cathartic MCU/Gone Girl mash-up I wrote in 2016. The published chapters will stay unedited, but whether or not this story will also stay unfinished is anyone's guess.

Tony thought he knew what rage was.

When he woke up one day and realized he'd crawled into Tiberius Stone's bed at 9 PM sharp without even having to be told, like a well-trained dog — surely that was rage. It had slammed into him like a freight train, the moment he'd opened his eyes: Ty going on and on about Tony's drinking, his friends, his eating habits. How he worked too much and slept too little, when sleeping was really code for going to bed and then rolling over onto his belly, gritting his teeth against each vicious jab of Ty's spit-coated fingers inside his ass, too greedy and too fast and too fucking incompetent. He'd spread himself wide for the sting of Ty's cock, braced his hand against the headboard and listened to the squeak of the bed-springs, to the slap of Ty's balls against his own; to his own labored breathing, and Ty's hot animal pants by his ear, thready like he was dragging in air through bared teeth, while Tony ground out moans and pretended to love the ever-loving hell out of one truly miserable fuck.

It had startled him awake, drenched in cold sweat like he'd been dipped: He was in Ty's suite, in Ty's bed, in Ty's fucking _clothes_. That was his phone on Ty's night-table, on Ty's side of the bed, those were his car keys in the pocket of Ty's slacks. His rage must have seeped out through his pores and piled up thick in the air, because suddenly Tiberius was waking up, asking him what was wrong, why was he looking like that, did he have a nightmare, what kind of boyfriend was he that he couldn't even open his mouth and tell Ty what was going on when Ty was so clearly worried for him.

Tony had looked at him and thought very calmly and very clearly: I'm going to kill you.

He had it all planned out: He'd drag Ty to one of S.I.'s high-profile parties that he loved so much, slip two milligram Rohypnol into his drink. As for the weapon, it could pass for a screwdriver, modelled so it would fit into the inseam pocket of his suit jacket easy, and the blade wasn't so much a blade as it was a thick, deadly sharp needle. It could be flipped in and out of its handle, blink and you'll miss it, and the handle was removable — all it took was one deft twist and tug. Once Ty came tumbling into his arms, Tony would gather him up and close, aim a laugh over Ty's head at the ocean of different-colored and sized eyes, and say, "That was one too many, huh? Make way, people, I gotta take this lightweight home." The flurry would part, clear a poorly lighted path for them to walk their way out, and no one would notice the weapon lodged faultlessly inside Ty's chest, right on target.

With any luck Ty would bleed out in the car on their way to Tony's suite — these days, the colourless, slick drone of Ty's voice was an assault on Tony's every nerve, like someone was pelting a tennis ball against his temple in steady intervals. If he actually had to listen to a conglomeration of gasps, cries or God forbid _words_, he couldn't promise that he wouldn't grab the nearest available blunt object and deliver a redundant killing blow, murder charges be damned.

Tony had come to his senses before he could go through with it. But those thoughts did their part, they cleansed him: like a cool stream of water on the flat of your tongue after your mouth's been dry for hours, and every hour felt like you'd spent it crunching sand. Or like that light breeze that sifts through your hair once you step into slightly damp shelter, when shadows beat down on your skin instead of the relentlessly hot flare of the sun.

His head had cleared. For once he could think beyond the deafening screech for blood, and that's when he considered damage. And then he left Ty, parked himself and his designs on a plane to Malibu, and made sure to publicly outshine, outsmart, out-deal, and out-whore the man in every step that was to come, while completely ignoring his existence. The latter had stung in particular; almost nothing about Tiberius was real, his tan included, nothing except for his obsession with Tony. Tony was the reason for the fake tan. Tony was why Ty had his own parents murdered after Tony had lost his.

Tony should've killed him probably, considering what Ty's become. No one could have traced it back to him. For four short days, he'd been so out of his mind livid he'd planned out a man's murder, planned it out perfectly. Sharpened the blade, booked a venue and hired Mark Powell to tailor the suit he would take Tiberius out in, metaphorically, in two ways. He'd thought that classified as rage.

But there's rage that makes you plan out a man's murder, and then there's rage that has you shaking from head to foot and your heart lashing up against your ribs like it wants to tear straight through the thick bones and join in the fight, to pull its own weight. He never even realized the way rage tastes, gurgling high up in your throat. The way it feels, so vivid you can feel every blood vessel arrowing through your body, you can even feel your own skin, thrumming and stretching taut over muscles and bones. Taut as if it wants to peel outwards, like your body can't contain its insides anymore.

Tony's arm is broken and he drops ninety feet and slams right down on it, but it's a dull sensation at best. All he wants is to scrape Barnes' skeleton hollow, to get his bare hands around Barnes' throat and squeeze down on all those fragile arteries and jugular veins, watch his face bloat and flush. He wants to rip Barnes' hair from his skull, tear out his spine through his back and lick up every last taste of blood. Steve doesn't even register, he's that annoying, invisible insect buzzing around the edges — up until it suddenly swerves and comes right down on your face like a cannonball, startling you back a step.

Once Steve does, Tony's finally got a face to put to the rage. It's not Barnes, after all — it never was. It's _Steve_. It's Steve's face, flushed a raw pink, swerving this way and that as he exerts all of his strength, all of his force, and tries to put so little as a dent in Tony's armor.

And Steve really does try: at one point he tucks the shield underneath Iron Man's jaw, hefts him up against the wall, and then batters his fist into Tony's faceplate. Once, twice, thrice. It's not doing shit, all it does is make Tony's head throb, make his mind shriek louder. Shortly after Barnes plays annoying fly, goes for Iron Man's ankle, and Tony twists around, bats him away. Then suddenly he's in the air, and there's Steve's face again, and it's never looked uglier. Tony wants to cover that face with his gauntlet, scorch the flesh right off. He's got his arms raised now, palms out, that tell-tale whine ratcheting up, electricity frizzing and crackling—

And then something whispers, Wait.

Says, Think.

Tony looks up at Steve. At the shield, raised high in his hands. It's going to come down on Tony's face, he knows it will, and Steve will have to live with it. He'll never forgive himself. He'll kill his husband.

Captain America, paragon of all that's good, killing his husband.

Tony's blood sings, pounds and throbs, and he thinks: There's worse things than death. Death is a mercy.

The shield comes down, but when it does, it comes down on Tony's chest, lodges horizontally into the arc reactor. Tony's eyes flick back up. His chest lowers. His breath slows.

And his head's clear.


	2. Boy Gets Girl Back

He picks himself up from the frozen over ground in Siberia, watches as his breath sketches smoky eddies into the icy air with each exhale. Then he trudges over to the Iron Man helmet, jams it back on. He sends an emergency signal to Vision to come pick me from that one place in Siberia, y'know, that one bunker that's located somewhere amid the vast panorama of white, where you freeze your nuts off even when you're covered in layers upon layers of titanium steel.

The first thing he does when he gets back to Manhattan is leak the Secretary of Defense's dirty laundry and sign it Sincerely, Tony Stark.

The second thing he does is have a heart attack.

The third thing he does is talk to T'Challa and arrange for the Avengers to be extradited to the United States.

"Barnes will remain," T'Challa tells him. It's not a request, not even an order. Tony's acquainted with the tone, he used the same one three days ago in Paris when told the waiter _I'll have the crème brûlée_ then handed over the menu, and last night, when he reminded his lawyers they'd represent Wilson, but not Barton and Lang. They'll rot in a cozy high-end maximum security prison on the outskirts of Florence, Colorado.

Tony has no use for Barnes. "If you want," he concedes easily.

"I don't, in fact," T'Challa replies. "But I owe him a debt, and as of now, he's in a state of suspended animation. I don't think it's wise to halt the process, not for his own safety or for anyone else's."

"My husband must be devastated," Tony observes, trying to disguise how little he truly cares with a fair dab of sympathy. It doesn't work: anyone can easily pick up the poorly veiled smugness in his voice, the dry amusement.

Whatever, given the shit Steve's put him through, it's in-character. No version of him was ever a saint.

"You won't divorce him?" T'Challa asks, mild and courteous. Small-talk by a king. Tony can tell he wants to hang up just as badly. T'Challa doesn't give a shit about any of them or their affairs, but now Tony's going to take his husband and his bootlicking friends off his hands. It's a truce, in a way. Between the two of them, they can't afford not to have one.

Tony licks warm bourbon off his fingers. He looks out over the steady, tranquil ripple of Lake Como, and says, "I swore for better or worse, 'til death do us part," and the words fall easier off his tongue now that he's standing out here with the backdrop swish of the water all around him. In Italy the air smells different. So does the green — the leaves, and the grass. He says, "Tell him I say to come home," and then he hangs up.

* * *

If Tony could've scheduled a heart attack, he would have penciled it in at the exact time it happened: two days after the fight in Siberia, four miles north of the New York-Presbyterian in Lower Manhattan. He hadn't exactly been waiting for it, but something had to give — an organ's an organ, and at one point terrorists had touched his heart with their bare hands while he was fully conscious. His heart's pumped poisoned blood for months on end, even at times when it wasn't getting oxygen. And while most of its housing's been replaced by titanium steel and titanium steel does protect against the full-throttle punch of a super-soldier, it can do little against the visual of that same super-soldier curling his flesh and blood hand around your mother's throat and taking his sweet time choking her out.

It wasn't him, Steve kept insisting until the very end. Tony's done the reading: they would wipe Barnes' mind, then point him towards the targets. But the cruelty, Tony wonders. Did they program that into him as well? Or did that come to him naturally?

He might get to ask Barnes, some day.

Neither Steve nor Barnes were ever even close to killing him. It was his heart: one stubborn, unyielding sucker that punched him back alive gasping and wide-eyed more times than was reasonable, and nonetheless liable to sap him lifeless in a matter of seconds. He could make out the weak beat of it way before Siberia, and after, when the beat skyrocketed and never slowed all the way back down. He felt it before it was even coming: in the marrows of his bones, not unlike a kitten that goes away to die alone.

His armor folded away and he went down hard on one knee right in front of one very flustered nurse, the feeling in his arms going first, his vision going next, secure in the knowledge that he'd leave a final parting gift in the form of certain video footage from Siberia once his heart tapped out for good, and woke up to dripping IVs and the smell of antiseptic and a doctor looking even more shaken than he was, which is to say: a little.

The surprise that he'd survived at all though, they had that in common.

His doctor's name was Navja Ranaut and Tony had saved her daughter's life from projectile shards of glass seven years ago. Meera's first experience with fight-or-flight, Navja said, and instead of choosing either she'd frozen all over and just let the shock-wave take her, facing inwards and watching the windows blow out with her eyes wide open. The explosion had stamped out her hearing and turned the world into a dull, smothered grey, and then a shock of vivid, bright red and gold had taken up her vision and hard, cold steel had caged her in a hold stronger than she'd ever thought possible. The subsequent surge of speed had hollowed her out, rendered her bloodless, a useless pile of floppy limbs protected and cloaked in unyielding iron. Once he'd set her down on solid ground her legs had folded in and she dropped, bones smacking down into the rocky concrete below, her breath exploding out of her in huge, overwhelmed sobs. It had shocked her, that strength, Navja told him. Meera thought him invincible, still does.

Navja — she insisted he use her name — gave him a hard look, like she didn't quite know what to do with him. Then she told him she couldn't stop him from going out there and letting aliens throw him into buildings, but everything else around his life was adjustable. He just had to reduce his stress levels, consume more vegetables and fruits and fish, and swap heavy lifting and physical combat for daily exercise, at least for a while.

And so he did: he went to Florence, Tuscany first, and each morning he'd go to the market, buy his heart foods — salmon and walnuts and blueberries and green vegetables — fresh from the local farmers slash vendors. People would stare and shout and even approach him, but after three weeks the excitement over seeing Tony Stark get schooled by Alessandro on trout and mackerel died down. Meanwhile the sales had gone up, tourists caught wind of his presence and flocked to the markets, and by evening all the Italian news channels were giving shout-outs that Tony Stark had put down roots in Florence. Cut to Alessandro who told the oohing and aahing interviewer that Tony Stark had bought three large asparagus spears and a hundred grams of leafy greens from him that day, and that he hated strawberries.

"He hates them?" the interviewer asked, pushing the microphone closer in his face.

"_Hates_ them," Alessandro confirmed with a hearty whack of his hand, and shook his head at the injustice of it all.

He'd train: eight days of resistance training followed by weeks and weeks of cardio, and each day he could feel his heart pump harder, stronger behind his breastbone, appreciative and exhilarated. He settled down in his nineteenth century villa in Milan eventually, right on the banks of the Lake Como, and swam laps in the adjoined pool every balmy, quiet night.

Now that he's back in New York he catches flashes of his own reflection in the glass panels, and despite the suit he still looks peculiarly out of place, like someone had plucked him straight from the streets of Spain or Morocco and lobbed him into the cold, bureaucratic backdrop that is one of Manhattan's most high-profile law firms. He walks into the conference room to the sight of Angie with her back to him, her hands busy shuffling through one of the many pairs of documents that are laid out in front of every seat at the table.

She flicks a glance at him over her shoulder, and visibly startles. Turns, one elegant pivot on her heels, and looks him over, casts her gaze indulgently all the way down.

Her face transforms in glee. "That's right, show him what he lost," she crows.

Angie — Angelina Hollis, Princeton University and Harvard Law School graduate and international human rights lawyer who just successfully wrapped investigations on war crimes committed in Syria and is part of a U.N. tribunal established to prosecute the likes of Russia and Iran. She's faced down dictators, bailed out whistle-blowers and former prime ministers and intelligence chiefs. According to Angie, talking some sense into a disillusioned Captain America has been quite the nice break.

Her eyes drift down to Tony's hand, to the slim gold band around his ring finger. The sight of it draws her up short.

"Or...not lost?" she amends. He can tell she doesn't like the idea. 

Steve won't like it either, give or take a few weeks.

Tony swallows down the laugh that's lodged up right there in the back of his throat — settles for a flash of a smile instead, showing teeth.

"For now," he says.

"You need a divorce attorney," Angie prompts, and the rest is clear enough: _You come to me_. She walks over, long legs eating up the distance in three elegant steps. Her hands go for his tie, her eyes to his Adam's apple, and she watches it bob as he swallows.

"That's not exactly fair," he points out, amused.

Dry glance up at him through her fair lashes, her eyebrows arched. This close, Tony can smell her hair, her skin — it gets him good, the back of his throat tingling in sympathy with how much he wants to taste her again: kiss her lips til they're bruised, full and tender, bite into the fragile base of her neck and feel the wild beat of her pulse against his mouth. He'd taken her right up against that conference table, the line of her back molded all along his front, pushed into the hungry, soaking hot clutch of her while she pushed back against him with her ass and her hips, one knee drawn up and braced on the edge of the table — for leverage but mainly for access.

She didn't want to get caught fucking Tony Stark, so he'd aimed for a fast finish: angled his hips just right and fucked up into her where it hurt, Angie gushing wet around him and growing wetter still, her tits flushed and her chest heaving, her whole body arched backwards into and over him like a crescent moon. He'd gone from grinding steadily to slow, composed strokes, the obscene squelch of his cock inside her loud enough to go through walls. Once he'd started snapping his hips her head had flopped back sickeningly and she was straight up singing into the warm cup of his hand, shameless and undone in a way that had him thinking she either couldn't hear herself or didn't know what was happening.

He'd brushed aside her hair with the jut of his jaw and slipped one hand between her legs so he could finish her off, but then she'd started struggling: her fingers flying to his wrist, nails digging into his skin hard enough to draw blood, her head thrashing this way and that so she could dislodge his palm from over her mouth.

"_No_," she'd heaved out on a gasp once he'd let her go, her thighs drawing closed—

"_Fuck_, easy, my dick," he'd complained, and she'd let out a hysterical laugh that turned into a sob.

"I can't," she'd pleaded, her eyes wet and her face flushed and her pussy fever-hot and swollen around him, "I can't, baby, I'll scream, don't—"

He'd shoved her around so she was facing him and she'd splayed out her legs without prompting, desperate and hungry and grateful, held her cunt open for him with her fingers so he could slide back in smooth and easy. It hadn't taken long, just a couple of well-aimed strokes and then her full-throated, wet gasps abruptly cut off and she'd gone mute and taut, trembling non-stop. Her eyes had been wide and glassy, staring up at the ceiling, and he'd closed his hand over her mouth again so she could shriek and strain against his palm while she came violently, the ruthless throb and clutch of her cunt all but choking his own orgasm out of him.

"Since when do either of us play fair?" she counters now, crossing her arms over her chest.

He works up a response, but then.

But then.

"Stark."

It's Wilson. Wilson's voice, quiet and earnest. Tony's heart-rate picks up, all hungry excitement, and he breaks gaze with Angie, who in turn steps back from him. Wilson's the one who spoke up, so it's only polite to look to him first. Same dark brown eyes, cool and steady as wells. Same sober expression, mouth a somewhat tight line, turned down a little at the corners. Sam's poised the way he always is, next to Captain America: trying hard to be all tough guy, but ultimately too kind-hearted to pull it all the way off.

Tony's gaze ticks over, and he scents blood — those putrid, exhausted swathes, twisting around a wounded animal.

He thinks, delighted and gleeful, _Honey, welcome home_, and for a moment Steve looks like he’d heard Tony loud and clear, something stricken and unhinged edging into the whites of his eyes.

* * *

Steve looks like a breeze could knock him over. He looks drawn, like he lost a stone, his cheekbones drawing shadows over the hollowed, sunken flesh underneath. It’s a striking juxtaposition, cosmic karma spitting in the face of natural progression — Tony in all his hardened, tanned, healthy glory, and Steve’s wan palor, skin so fragile and white it’s almost see-through, one idle prod with a fingernail enough to ooze blood.

Steve looks more interested in what’s stayed the same rather than what’s changed, his eyes searching Tony’s right hand like a teetering ship seeks anchor. They snag at that glint of gold and flare bright, and Tony manages to work up something like vague irritation, draws his hand back and out of sight — Really? You think it’s that fucking easy?

Steve twists away, quietly, undramatically, so he’s facing the exit. Tony catches him swipe a shaky hand over his mouth, and it’s a quenching sight, alright.

"They arrested Barton and Lang the moment we touched down," Wilson says into the room, earnest as always. He looks at Tony as he says it, and yet he doesn't sound the slightest bit accusing. Tony knows better: people usually think he's responsible, and when they don't they think he'll fix it. This time it's both.

Angie doesn’t hesitate. "They'll remain in custody until the day of their trial,” she tells him, ruthless in her pragmatism as any other woman Tony knows and loves. When Wilson opens his mouth to object, she quells him with a single, not entirely unsympathetic look.

"We negotiated on your behalf as well as on Mr. Barton's and Mr. Lang’s,” she assures him. “But unlike you and Captain Rogers, they have extensive criminal records. Don't get it twisted — I fight to ensure just and legal proceedings for my clients, not special treatment.”

“They wanted to help me,” Steve speaks up. His voice is woven through with a familiar solidness that makes Tony wonder: should he be worried? is there even a way to break Steve without killing him? An intrusive thought, flushed out just as quickly as it came.

Courtesy of being Tony Stark: he knows fronting when he sees it. 

“All they ever tried was to help me, because I called and told them there was a situation that needed helping,” Steve tells her.

Angie asks, “Did you brief them?”

“Yes, once they got on site,” Steve says, quick and earnest, because Angie commands respect and Steve respects women — respects them so much he gets more than a little flustered and heavy-lidded when they’re in charge.

Angie cocks her head, eyes marbled and guileless.“What did you tell them?”

Steve falters. You don’t survive four wars without solid instincts. “That Zemo was about to let loose a dozen super-soldiers, and we couldn’t let that happen,” he replies.

Angie’s eyebrows pull together. “Weren’t they curious as to what happened to the other half of the team?” she asks, incredulous. “You had two big hitters sitting out the fight, and it didn’t even occur to Barton to ask why you’d called him when you had Iron Man and Vision in your corner?”

A scornful husband who feels better hating you but secretly still cares would cut in right about now — but then Steve goes ahead and says, “Clint rescued Wanda from the compound,” and Tony slumps back and lets nature take its course.

“He knew we were on different sides,” Steve finishes. 

“Did he know why?” Angie prods.

Prolonged silence this time. Tony catches Wilson shift restlessly next to Steve, and that’s the final nail in the coffin. The next words out of Steve’s mouth aren’t going to make up for it, but Tony’s still interested in what he can come up with when someone’s choking the blood out of his dick.

Steve just thanks it for its service on the way out and says, “There wasn’t enough time.”

Tony can’t help it, he snaps, “_Steve,_” and Angie angles her body towards him, retorts, “Don’t bother, damage done.”

“So if this was a test, I’m guessing we failed,” Wilson surmises drily. He's going for amused, unruffled — buddha floating on a lily pad, steady like a rock even on his descent towards absolute bottom — but Tony looks at Wilson and sees clear as day how the air's bearing down on him like a physical weight, thousand yard stare aimed not at Angie, not even at Tony, but at the crevice between them.

Angie admonishes, “Nothing’s lost yet,” drawing twin frowns towards her. “Consider it an evaluation for me, and a demonstration for you. If you truly want to help your friends, we need to prep you for court.”

“They’re good people,” Steve tells her — tells it to her and Tony both. "They're good people, just doing what they thought was right.” And then, quietly: “Can you keep that in mind?”

_You gotta watch your back around this one. There's a chance he'll break it!_

Angie smiles kindly. "My clients in a nutshell," she reminds him.

"Julian Assange," Tony reminds _her._

"Let it go," Angie sings, her smile turned saccharine-sweet.

Steve's tracking their exchange, and he's completely miserable. You wouldn't know it looking at him — all vaguely concerned, cool blue eyes, his brows pulled together, forehead set in creased lines — but Tony's known Steve long enough, known him intimately. Known him at his most disgustingly human and when he was grieving, known him when he was petulantly hungry and when he couldn't access his back-pay. And sometimes he wonders whether some of that ice Steve was trapped in chipped off and melted into his heart, because at this rate it looks like he’ll fucking have to let Steve inside him and poach some of his own body heat to coax any big reactions out of him. Take him apart behind closed doors.

"What happens now?" Sam asks, when it becomes obvious Steve's not going to.

Angie pretends to think about it. Even shakes out her watch, faux-casual, and spares a redundant glance down at it, before she flicks her eyes up at Tony and says, wryly, "Now, I believe it's time for coffee." Then she calls out, "Christine," and an apple-cheeked blonde with thick-rimmed black glasses and red-stained lips materializes next to her. "Take care of these fellas for me, would you?" Angie tells her, and to Wilson and Steve: "She can bring you lunch, re-group in fifteen."

She's taken all of four purposeful steps — a woman who's used to being stared after while she leaves — when she comes to a dithering standstill. It snags Wilson's attention, and he unfolds his arms and frowns.

Angie turns, leveling Tony with an arched, meaningful look.

"And you I'll be seeing around," she announces.

Tony's face breaks into a grin, wild and sharp, and Angie's eyes go bright, oh so bright. She whips her head back around, hair flying, heels clicking away.

"Christ," Wilson swears. "It's like you and Potts all over again."

Steve, because he's about as a subtle as a flying brick, asks, "She single?"

“Why," Tony retorts. He loosens up his folded arms, leans back so the edge of the desk bites into the meat of his ass. "You interested?"

"_No_," bursts out of Steve, too loud and too sharp. He damn near chokes on air in his haste to get the word out, and Tony feels torn between wanting to give Steve a patronizing pat on the cheek and spitting in his goddamn face.

Wilson offers awkwardly, "Yeah, I can—" and jerks his thumb back towards the door.

Tony’s eyes are dangerously close to rolling out of his head. Devastating, crushing boredom — the same kind that used to make him nod off midway through shareholders meetings, back in the day — seeps into him like lead, loosens both his limbs and his tongue, makes him say, "You can if you don't care about getting briefed," amusement trickling in through the empty crevasses as Steve and Wilson snap to attention like Pavlov’s soldiers. They're synced in a way that's bound to draw eyes and incite envy but leaves Tony feeling utterly cold. It's one-dimensional, he knows — thirty years and counting compared to Steve's and Wilson's three? four and a half? and still him and Rhodey move at their own pace. Tony's never been able to do anything but, never wanted to, and it's part of why this marriage was doomed from the start: Steve would grab him by the wrist, try and tug him along, and then grow frustrated and resentful when Tony held fast, anchored and unyielding, like his heels were welded to the ground.

He pushes off the desk with the firm curve of his ass. "Go ahead," he tells them, tipping his head towards the proverbial elephant in the room. "You wanna go off this time around too, feel free, but you don't do it half-cocked."

Wilson snorts. "Like you'd clear the path," he says, eyeing him doubtfully.

Apparently Steve's knack for being effortlessly irritating rubs off after too much exposure. What a crying shame.

"You want me to move?" Tony offers, faux-obliging. "Because I can do that, I can step aside right now and let Germany, the United States and Nigeria sink their chagrined little claws into you."

"They're calling for our heads," Steve infers, ever the smart one.

"You humiliated them," Tony reminds him, glowering incredulously.

Steve matches him one by one, lobs back, "They ordered a shoot on sight," bristling and disbelieving, the rising pitch to his voice bordering on childish, whiny. Tony had been delighted the first time he'd heard that note in Steve's voice.

Now it feels like someone's scratching their nails oh so lightly across the lobes of his brain.

He just barely keeps his knee from jumping, compensates by curling his hands — tucked into the pits of his elbows, safely out of sight — into fists, clenching them hard enough so his nails dig into his calloused palms.

His vocal cords take on a life of their own, contract and fold open and push out in a crude imitation of Steve's voice, "But I had to protect the super soldier master assassin against twenty sparsely armed, middle-aged men in nylon and kevlar," and down snaps his head, dark, scorching eyes locking with Steve's blue, guileless ones. He knows he's got to simmer down, douse this wildfire that's laying waste to each of his laboriously crafted, unaffected, fake fucking layers, but instead he just drawls, "Give me a _fucking_ break," and relishes Steve's visceral response — the way his head rears back and to the side, glassy-eyed and rattled by the unmasked venom in Tony's voice.

"C'mon, Stark, that ain't fair," Wilson interjects, ever the conciliator, and points out, "Without Steve some of those men would be dead now."

Tony wants to kiss him on the mouth.

He plays it by the book — audibly catches his breath, casts his gaze away and to the side, works his jaw, and sure enough he senses the sudden, loaded silence, hears his husband say, "Tony," — his voice thready, as close to pleading as he'll get around second company.

"Johannes Schulz and Valentin Auer," Tony says quietly, addressing the large window and Manhattan beyond it. "Schulz on the spot, Auer on the table. Brain needed more oxygen than it got, but his organs pulled through, so he managed to save three more people even after he made his exit. Win some, lose some."

"I need air," Steve chokes out, gasps it almost, and he sounds so small, all the way back down to five foot one, complete with his former ailment.

Tony reaches a hand back, picks up the amended Accords. "You need to _listen_," he corrects, pitches his voice gentle and quiet to counteract the dull thud as he lets the stack drop down on the table again — careless.

Sam shoots him a look — it's a peculiar cross between anxious and beseeching, and Tony gives him a vacant one back. But he feels for Sam, really, he gets it — Steve seems to be having a hard time calming down, which Sam's likely never been witness to. Steve's tilted his head down and his body away, and going by the heaving shoulders it looks like he's forgotten how to breathe, like he's inconspicuously and greedily pumping oxygen but it's just not getting into his lungs.

Tony knows better. There's too much oxygen in Steve's body by this point.

"Steve," Tony says, and again, “_Steve,_" and the stubborn bastard finally turns around.

His eyes — wide, a little wild — go wider still when Tony pushes off on one heel and bears down on him. Tony's got to think about chipping that self-righteous jaw with his knuckles to be able to make the trek at all, but he gets there, eventually. And then he picks up Steve's hand, feels warm, rough skin against his own, and sets it flush against his sternum, ignores the way the back of his neck and skull have started prickling, much like invisible claws have latched onto his flesh and are trying to pull him back, hissing. He feels the blunt touch of Steve's fist first and goes about unfolding Steve's clenched fingers from around his own, files that desperate grasp away for later, and then there's Steve's palm all over his chest, his thumb grazing Tony's right nipple just so.

Opportunistic and duplicitous as Steve is, he leaves it there, strokes the hardened nub a little — imperceptibly, impossible for anyone but Tony to notice.

“Breathe,” Tony tells him, murmurs it to Steve quiet and intimate, and matches actions to his own words, sucks in a mouthful of air. He sees all: on the periphery, Wilson turning away, embarrassed, and the smudged blur that’s Angie behind Steve’s broad-shouldered silhouette, still at a distance but approaching at a rapid clip. He blames them both for missing the way Steve’s slowly eclipsing the busy background, closing Tony in: the hand star-fished on Tony’s chest veers left, closes around his flank, and tugs him against a long stretch of kevlar and exhaust and the rancid stench of homelessness, of something that’s been left behind, rotting away. Steve burrows into him, entitled and confident, and his grip on Tony is immobilizing, firm, rooted in the deep-seated unconstraint that’s come with fucking Tony for years. Tony can’t blame him — he’s got Steve’s thighs against his own, Steve’s breath against his mouth, and it’s muscle memory, to arch into Steve’s hands, to open his thighs for Steve’s crotch and his mouth for Steve’s tongue.

In the end it’s Angie’s reflexive, genuinely flustered splutter that pulls Tony out of his temporary lunacy, makes Tony sink his teeth into Steve’s plush bottom lip hard and fast. Tony catches Steve’s soft, wounded whimper in his mouth, draws back and watches Steve lift his hand, touch it to his sore lips.

“I’ll see you at home,” Tony tells him sweetly, and then steps around Steve and between Wilson and Angie to sweep out of the room — but he doesn’t get very far before he hears Wilson: faint and worried and uneasy, telling Steve, “He’s gonna eat you alive, man.”


End file.
